Abstract
Drought is a major threat to global soybean production. The limited transformation potential and polyploid nature of soybean have hindered functional analysis of soybean genes. Previous research has implicated farnesylation in the plant’s response to abscisic acid (ABA) and drought tolerance. We therefore used virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) to evaluate farnesyltransferase genes, GmERA1A and GmERA1B (Glycine max Enhanced Response to ABA1-A and -B), as potential targets for increasing drought resistance in soybean. Apple latent spherical virus (ALSV)-mediated GmERA1-down-regulated soybean leaves displayed an enhanced stomatal response to ABA and reduced water loss and wilting under dehydration conditions, suggesting that GmERA1A and GmERA1B negatively regulate ABA signaling in soybean guard cells. The findings provide evidence that the ALSV-VIGS system, which bypasses the need to generate transgenic plants, is a useful tool for analyzing gene function using only a single down-regulated leaf. Thus, the ALSV-VIGS system could constitute part of a next-generation molecular breeding pipeline to accelerate drought resistance breeding in soybean.
Highlights
Climate change has increased the frequency and severity of diverse abiotic stresses worldwide [1, 2]
Arabidopsis ERA1 plays an important role in abscisic acid (ABA) signaling [29,30,31] and is a promising candidate gene for genetic manipulation of drought stress tolerance in Arabidopsis and canola plants [35, 36]
Drought is considered to be a major problem in soybean production worldwide [43,44,45], ERA1 homologs in soybean have not been reported to date
Summary
Climate change has increased the frequency and severity of diverse abiotic stresses worldwide [1, 2]. Drought is by far the most devastating abiotic stress affecting plant growth and productivity [3]. In soybean (Glycine max L.), drought reduces seed quality and quantity, and induces changes in plant morphology, by reducing CO2 assimilation, leaf area development, and symbiotic N2 fixation [4,5]. Functional validation of candidate genes for improved drought resistance identified in model plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana could provide gene resources for breeding varieties of non-model staple crops, such as soybean, that can withstand drought conditions. Based on our knowledge of the mechanism underlying abscisic acid (ABA)/stress-.
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